The Valkyrie Star: Book 1 Light and Shadow
by jgames
Summary: 3 years after their show was canceled, the Warners find themselves vying to keep entertained. Their world turns upside down when Dot bumps into a strange humanoid alien. Mysteries unfold as another alien seeks help from the little girl. R&R please.
1. Chapter 1  Collapse

Animaniacs and the Valkyrie Star

Book one: Light and Shadow

(Uncut Extended Copy)

_Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters associated with the Warner Brothers' Animaniacs, nor do I own to any characters in their likeness. I do not own the rights to any of the characters associated with the Warner Brothers' Animaniacs show either. The events in this fan fiction are purely fictional and should not be taken in serious context._

**Chapter 1**** - Collapse**

My name is Princess Angelina Contessa Louissa Franchesca Banana Fanna Bo Besca III. But you can call me Dot. Call me Dotty and ya die. Anyway, I have quite the story to tell you.

Smoke. That is the most prominent smell dancing in the air right now. I am standing in the middle of the wreckage of mine and my brothers' only place that we've come to call "home". The Warner Brothers Studio Water Tower had crashed earlier with us inside it. All around I could hear sirens of emergency vehicles, people gathered around to look at the damage and flashing their cameras at me. The whole scene went by as if it was in slow motion. I turned around to see more people taking photographs of me. I looked down at my hands and noticed that my gloves were tattered and my hands had blood on them. Sounds were muffled and voices were barely audible to my ears for a time. All around me I could see shreds of metal and pieces of destroyed furniture lying in shambles. The top of the water tower was lying around six feet to my right and it even looked worse for wear. Confused? Allow me to explain how I got here.

It was three years after our show was canceled and it also was rare that we were able to escape from the water tower any more. This was one of those times that we **were** able to escape from the tower. We first made sure to lose Ralph by hiding as plastic props for one of the movies being made at that time. At that time I started to notice a man standing nearby. He had a light tan on his white skin and large muscles, as well as he wore a strange outfit around his waist and he walked around shirtless. Normally I would have gone gaga over someone like that, but something was a bit off with him. I don't know if it was his spiky black hair that extended down half the length of his spine and stood out like he was a character from a Japanese cartoon, or if it was the way he stared right at me with his piercing green eyes. But, something about him made me simply wanna stay away from him. Within all of the hustle and bustle, I don't know if he walked away when a movie director passed by him or if he was simply a figment of my imagination and I needed to check in with Dr. Scratchansniff for a serious check up. But as the person walked in front of him, he vanished. Like a movie stunt from a cheap horror flick. I almost expected him to appear from behind me in a few seconds until Yakko, my older brother who is now almost 15, whispered, "Coast's clear! Let's go." We then sneaked off in the opposite direction that Ralph headed in.

We laughed for a while at the adrenaline rush we just had at dodging the dumb guard and continued on our way trying to calm down. We didn't get very far when we heard Ralphs whistle. As we turned around to look in the direction of the sound, we noticed Ralph running back after us. "Yikes!" we yelled and took off as fast as we could. Apparently, I didn't see that guy from before walking up to talk to me and I crashed right into him. The both of us fell backward and fell onto our butts. Shaking off the pain, I shot up and ran as fast as I could to catch up with my brothers. As I rounded a corner, a large butterfly net crashed down on top of me and I was scooped up by Hello Nurse, Dr. Scratcansniff's assistant. It wouldn't have mattered anyway. I had lost the whereabouts of my brothers and had no idea where they had gone to. "Well, there goes my entire day." I thought to myself until, a fishing net flopped on top of Hello Nurse, pinning her to the ground for a time and allowing me to escape. I looked where the net came from and there was Wakko with his gag bag. I smiled at my brother who was just a few years older than I. He was close to 11 years of age and I was turning nine. I thought they would come back for me.

Wakko led the way and we rejoined with Yakko at one of the sound stages. "What happened? You looked like you tripped over your own foot." He scoffed at me. "No I didn't. I bumped into someone and fell..." My voice trailed off as I noticed my brothers looking at me with a worried look on their faces. "What?" I retorted. "Uuuhhhhhhh, Dot. There wasn't anyone else there when you tripped." Yakko answered. "I didn't trip..." I snapped. "You didn't see the large muscled guy with no shirt and strange black hair?" I then asked. "We didn't see you jump on anyone." Yakko stated sarcastically. "Too much hair." I retorted. "Maybe, we've been in the tower too long." Yakko said, worried about me. I started to think that I imagined the creepy man after all. Darn it! Why couldn't I have hallucinated Mel Gibson?

We spent most of the day ditching and dodging Ralph, Hello Nurse, and Dr. Scratchansniff. It's quite amusing to see them run around aimlessly with butterfly nets. The creepy thing is, every once in a while, I would see that strange man every now and again. Sometimes, he'd be shirtless with black hair, and other times he'd be wearing a t-shirt, jeans and have white hair with a long beaded rat's tail on left side of his head. (Cool thing was, he looked pretty decent with it.) When he'd have black hair, it seemed like no one could even see him. And when he had white hair, he was working on sets and props like he had a job on the lot. The two looked slightly different but, I was so sure that they were the same person. I thought I was going even crazier than Mr. Director at one point. One time when I saw the strange man, he had his white hair and I pointed him out to my brothers. "I think that's him. I know that's him. Tell me you guys see him now." I complained to Yakko. He leaned over and squinted hard to look at the person I was talking about. "Oh, you mean Loc? He's the new props and set worker. He's been here for about three weeks now. And if you look close enough, uuuuuuhhhh, it looks to me like he's wearing a shirt." I just gave my brother a dirty look then screamed out in frustration, "I'm going crazy!" "I'll say you are. His hair isn't even black. It's white." Wakko pointed out. "Well thank you 'Mr. Obvious'." I sarcastically remarked to my brother's comment. "You're welcome." Wakko responded innocently. I simply slapped my forehead in even more frustration.

"I just realized something, sibs." Yakko exclaimed to us. "That I've stayed in the tower for too long?" I asked sarcastically. "That the Wheel of Morality wasn't a good idea after all?" Wakko asked seriously. "No. We have yet to haze the new guy." Yakko stated with a smile. And with that we made our way to him quickly. However, before we could begin teasing him, we heard Ralphs whistle blowing briefly from our left. Looking over in that direction, we saw Ralph's chubby body running after us. (I swear one day, we'll run him into a "36" pant size!) We took off as fast as we could, but before we did, I made sure I got a good look at Loc's eyes. They weren't even the same color. Loc's eyes were icy blue and the strange, shirtless man that popped up every once in a while had dark menacing green eyes. It was so strange though, they had the exact same face, even though they definitely showed opposite personalities. I could swear that it was possible that they were the same person.

It was starting to get late and we were becoming exhausted from all of the running. When we found ourselves at the foot of the water tower, Wakko reached into his gag-bag and pulled out a square steel platform with a pulley lever attached to one side. He placed it on the ground and the two of us stepped on. When Wakko pulled on the lever, a steel cylinder rose from underneath the platform and lifted the square piece of steel like it was an elevator. When Ralph finally caught up with us, the platform had lowered itself back to ground level. Ralph then stepped on the platform and pulled on the lever in the opposite direction as Wakko did. Instead of rising up and allowing him to meet up with us on the towers walk way, an anvil dropped out of nowhere (literally) and landed on the guard's head, flattening him. We shrugged our shoulders with confusion as to how that phenomenon continues to happen to the poor man and then we opened the towers large shield shaped door and jumped back in. Wakko closed the door behind us and we counted this one as a successful escape. "Well siblings, that makes ten successful escapes this week." Yakko stated as he marked another line on the calendar. As a sporting event, we decided to see and keep track of how many times we could escape and not get caught. So far, our largest record is twelve.

"Thanks for not telling him." I said to Wakko meaning how I was caught by Hello Nurse after slamming into that mystery man that resembles Loc, but isn't. "You're welcome." Wakko said figuring out what I meant. "Didn't tell me what?" Yakko asked coyly to Wakko and me. Wakko began stumbling to think of a good excuse to replace the truth. "Uh, um, duh uh... That her flower was out dated." He finally said. I actually didn't know whether to feel relieved or angry with that. Yakko looked over to the flower tying my ears together and noticed that it actually was a little cracked and worn. He turned back to Wakko and said, "You know you are **not** a very good liar, right?" Wakko simply grinned at his older brother slightly embarrassed. Yakko then turned to me and said, "You got caught didn't you?" I just lowered my head, folded my arms behind my back, and lightly dragged the thumb toe of my right foot along the ground in a circle pattern in shame. Yakko backed off and stated, "Make that 'nine' then." He then made his way back to the calendar that he used to mark our successes and covered his latest mark in white out. "I think it's time we turned in." Yakko then stated. "What you wanna turn into?" Wakko asked. However, before he could make any suggestions, Yakko gave his little brother a dirty look and simply said, "Go to bed Wakko!" He just simply gave Yakko a goofy grin.

We each had gotten ready for bed, me in my pink night gown, Wakko in his even longer blue shirt and Yakko...in his brown khakis. Yakko crawled into his bed, plopped his head on the pillow and said, "G'night!" to the both of us. "Good night" I replied to Yakko. But, before Wakko could even open his mouth to respond, the tower felt as if it shifted in one direction for a quick second and was accompanied by an incredibly loud scraping noise, like two metal beams being rubbed together. Yakko shot up in his bed and cried out, "Whoa, what was **that**?" For obvious reasons that we could smell sometime later, Wakko blushed and said, "Pardon me." All I could get out was, "Disgusting." Even though I actually highly doubted that the rumbling came from him. Yakko simply gave me an uncomfortable look for a short time, kissed his hand and said, "Goodnight everybody."

"I'm gonna make myself a sandwich before bed." Wakko said making his way to the old school piece of junk we called a refrigerator. The moment he stepped over half way across the floor, the tower began to shift again. It shifted so much in fact that suddenly, we felt the entire tower shift and turn to one side. Deafeningly loud creaking noises erupted as the tower began tilting and falling to toe ground in a wide arch. Despite the fall only lasting no more than 20 seconds, it felt like forever till we collided with the pavement. Yakko, still in the bunk bed began to slide to the lowest point of the tower and in a hurry. He was barely able to "abandon ship" before the bed crashed into pieces against the other wall. It seemed like gravity began to shift to that very wall and the rest of the furniture began shifting as well. I barely noticed myself sliding then lifting in the air as the tower turned on its side. Once the majority of the furniture smashed against the wall, all I could see was a sea of broken wood, random cloth, and porcelain shrapnel. Once the tower impacted with the ground it became so malleable that it bent in ways that didn't seem possible even to cartoons. The metal walls folded, warped and even broke open and shredded other destroyed objects that didn't even deserve the excess punishment. When my body made contact with the pavement, a flash of light burst in front of my eyes and I blacked out for who-knows-how-long. When I came too, I was bleeding from a cut in my forehead and my ears were ringing like the bells at Notre Dame. My mind was hazy and so was my sight for a time. At first all I could make out were random flashes of light and blurs of various colors. Complete confusion had set in and I could barely think. Everything seemed like it was in slow motion and I hardly knew who I was let alone **where** I was. The blurs of color slowly began to take shape and the sounds slowly came back to my ears. The shapes began looking like a crowd of people and the sounds flooding my ears began sounding like the crowd's chatter. As I turned around I could see random people flashing their cameras in my direction.

As my head began to clear, a thought came to my mind and I began to frantically look around for my brothers. When I finally located them, Yakko was holding on to one of his arms as if it was broken or something. Wakko's shirt was tattered and he was missing a sleeve. All of us were battered a bruised from the crash. As my head cleared even more, the twinge of pain began to creep over my body and I began feeling each and every bruise and wound I had received from the crash. Suddenly, a familiar cranky voice came from beyond the crowd of people. "Step aside! Move along! Stop taking pictures! What are ya, paparazzi? If you people actually don't have anything better to do than stare at a couple of yutz's in the middle of a crash site than I suggest you all get better jobs!" It was Slappy Squirrel. You could tell from the heavy New York accent. Apparently, she heard the crash from all of the way at her tree. She stormed up to the caution tape that was placed around the parameter to quarantine the area. It was a good thing I didn't break my legs, because I decided to walk up to the cranky old gray squirrel. When I got within speaking distance from her, she said to me, "What happened? You look like you got into a fight with a blender and lost big time. Which one are you anyway, yutz one, yutz two or yutz three?" I actually didn't like that comment a whole lot, however in the past three years, her sight had nearly gone completely and she had a habit of forgetting her glasses.

"Here ya go Aunt Slappy!" Skippy said from behind her handing Slappy her glasses. Slappy's glasses weren't anything special. They were simple rectangular lenses with an invisible bottom frame. The top frame was thin, a silvery color and followed the shape of the lens almost perfectly. The ear pieces of the glasses were equally plain and simply angled upward to hang on her ears. Her vision began to clear up as she put on her glasses and Slappy finally recognized the dark blur in front of her. "Oh. Dot right?" She stated then squinted at me for a short time then turned back to her nephew. "Skippy, am I wearing these things right? She looks worse when I put them on." She stated. "You're wearing them right Aunt Slappy. They were only **inside** the tower when it collapsed." Skippy retorted to his aunt. "Really?" Slappy stated with surprise, "Why would you go and do that?" I was beginning to get real annoyed with this act of senility. (In which it obviously was. She was just trying to get a reaction out of me.) "Be nice Aunt Slappy." Skippy retorted to his aunt. "Oh, alright." Slappy sighed, "But you guys owe me a story. Meet me at my house after this gentleman here takes your statement." When I turned around, there was a young man in a police uniform standing there just placing his arm on my shoulder. I was gonna give him a "Hellooooo Nurse" and jump into his arms. However when I tried moving too fast, my body began burning with pain.


	2. Chapter 2  Unexplained Events

**Chapter 2**** – Unexplained Events**

After giving our statements to the police and getting ourselves taken care of by some of the cute paramedics, we spent a night at the closest hospital. It took a while for us to settle down. (You know, all of the gorgeous doctors and nurses) That morning, we went back to the crash site to see what of ours we could salvage. Wakko eventually found his favorite teddy bear, Yakko found a few of his belongings like his paddle-balls, and I searched around and luckily found some of my outfits intact. (I wasn't gonna wear just my nightgown the whole time.) I picked out the little red dress I wore in Macadamia Nut, the dress Googily Goop gave me, my usual pink skirt and a dark pink shawl I rarely ever wear. I also found a few more outfits from Macadamia Nut, like the cut off shorts and the black and yellow stripped tube top. After gathering our things, located something we could carry them in. Yakko found a suitcase for my outfits and so I put them inside carefully and closed the suitcase.

All of a sudden, all three of our stomachs growled in synch. "You guys wanna get something to eat at Slappy's house?" Yakko asked. "You really wanna eat walnuts for each meal?" I retorted. "Uuuhhhhhhh, let's order a pizza." Yakko then corrected himself and grinned. We first decided to make our way to Slappy's tree. (Unless you **want** to be blown up, you don't make Slappy wait any longer than you have to.) We eventually walked into Salppy's tree and the first thing she said to us was, "What kept ya?" "They made us stay the night at the hospital to make sure that we weren't too badly hurt." Yakko explained. "Ah, alright. Any of you guys want pizza?" Slappy then asked. If this was one of our skits you would hear a record scratch in the background at this point. We simply stared at her for a while, bewildered. "Don't look at me like that, it was Skippy's idea." She snapped at us. When we turned our gaze to the small brown squirrel, he simply smiled at us.

After eating the pizza, we proceeded to explain to her our story about how we ended up in the tower when it crashed. "It seems like this whole shenanigan is a blessing in disguise..." Slappy finally said. Confused I was about to ask her why until she interrupted me. "...because, **you** my dear," She said pointing the first finger in her right paw at me, "need to put yourself on 'coo coo' meds. It's not good if you are seeing things at your age." I decided to retort back to that comment. "Then explain how I'm 'seeing things' when I crash right into them." Slappy's answer was plain and simple. "According to your brothers' explanation, you tripped over your own foot." Now I **was** confused. Was I really seeing things, or was there someone really there? What exactly was happening to me? These questions swirled in my mind until they began blending together in a blur of confusion. My head suddenly began to throb at all of the questions and confusion. My body felt weak and my knees buckled from under me and I nearly collapsed to the ground. Luckily Yakko and Wakko were there to catch me before then.

"I think I need some fresh air." I finally said as my headache continued on. "Wanna go for ice cream?" Yakko suggested. "Sounds good to me." Wakko stated excitedly. "We don't have hundreds of dollars to spend on sweets Wakko. You get a ten dollar limit alright?" Yakko retorted to his overeager brother. Wakko gave Yakko a pouty face and whined like a sad puppy. "**Ten** dollars." Yakko reiterated. In frustration Wakko snapped with his right hand and folded his arms while giving an angry look to the ground near his older brother's feet. There was a clear change in Yakko from those three years. He had grown to look at the world through more mature eyes, even though he still enjoyed having fun like Wakko and I, he learned to take things more seriously...Such as our diminishing bank account.

We made our way to the ice cream parlor closest to the studio and got ourselves the ice cream of our choosing. Like Yakko told us before we arrived, now wasn't the time to get ourselves thrown out of anyplace in town, so we kept our zaniness to a minimum until we could finally get ourselves settled somewhere. At the parlor, we were standing in line to make our order, when something to my left caught my eye. When I looked over I saw Loc sitting there at one of the tables, gazing at me every once in a while and eating a strawberry sundae. I heard a voice ask me a vague question but I was too distracted to tell what exactly what it was. Then I heard Yakko say, "Earth to Dot!" while shaking my shoulder. "Huh, what?" I asked slightly startled out of my daydream. "What do you want?" Yakko repeated. Realizing that he was asking me what flavor of ice cream I wanted, I came back to the immediate reality in a flash. "Oh, one scoop of vanilla bean on a waffle cone topped with rainbow sprinkles and a cherry." I stated for my order. Yakko ordered a caramel crunch cone topped with butterscotch syrup on the top, and Wakko... a large bowl of 'death by chocolate' coupled with a scoop of caramel crunch topped with both chocolate and butterscotch syrup and topped with blackberries and almonds. Odd...yes, tasty sounding...no.

"How can you **eat** that?" I asked Wakko. The simple minded boy only answered, "Easy, like this", as he shoved a large spoonful of his treat into his mouth. "Disgusting." I said thinking about how the flavors clashed. The first thing I did was pluck the cherry off of my cone, pulled the stem off and tossed the cherry into the air. As the cherry reached its peak in height, the sky turned red and deepened till it was crimson colored. Then, as the cherry began to fall, the sky again turned back to its light blue color. I was so stunned at the event that I forgot that the cherry was in the air. However, I still had my mouth open and my shot was dead on. The cherry fell straight into my mouth and I nearly choked on it as it hit the back of my throat. My brothers were also stunned at the strange event as well. Yakko sat in his seat speechless and with his mouth gaping open. A sight rarely seen. Wakko however, was staring at me with puppy dog eyes looking like he was begging mo for something. I finally found out what it was when he said, "I want a cherry that does that." Still confused as to what exactly happened at that moment, I simply chewed on the cherry and raised my right eyebrow at him. I made sure to throw away the pit before I started with my ice cream cone.

We spent the majority of the time joking around and trying to figure out what caused the sky to turn red instantaneously. All we could come up with were just a bunch of silly jokes. At one point I looked over to where I saw Loc sitting and noticed that he wasn't there anymore. "He probably left after finishing his ice cream." I thought to myself. After finishing our treats, we began to head back to the studio. And just before we left, I caught a glimpse of the black haired guy. However, when I turned to see if it was him, the figure had vanished completely. I rubbed my eyes in slight confusion hoping to finally get a grip on myself. Maybe the crash did a lot more than I thought. Maybe Slappy was right, and I was actually loosing it.

When we arrived back at the lot, I decided to finally pay Dr. Scratchansniff a visit. At least to see whether or not I'm still sane-ish. We arrived at the door of the p-psychiatrist, Dr. Scratchansniff. Ah, the fond memories we have of driving him up the walls. But we weren't here to reminisce, we were here to find out what is happening to me. I mean, being zany is different from hallucinating right? Yakko knocked on the door and said to me as we waited, "After Dot get's a quick examination, we need to find a temporary place to stay the night." At that moment, the door slowly swung open and Hello Nurse stood at the front entrance and greeted us with a polite, "Welcome to Dr. Scratchansniff's." At first sight, like every other time they see her, my brothers went gaga over the insanely gorgeous human. They stiffened their backs and began panting like dogs with hearts in their eyes. Suddenly they howled in unison, "Helooooo Nurse!" and continued standing there staring at her, panting. I was extremely flustered right now and didn't have time to wait for them to finish with their temporary crushes, so I took matters into my own hands. I pulled out a small mallet from the hammerspace behind my back and smacked them both on the head with it. As they stiffened up like two-by-fours and began to fall backward, I reached around and snatched two cardboard boxes from beyond anyone's view at the moment, and slid them underneath my tipping brothers. Each box was the appropriate size to fit the specific brother almost perfectly. After they fell in like they were collapsing into holes, I sealed the boxes with packaging tape I pulled once again from the hammerspace from behind my back and stacked the smaller box on top of the larger box. I then put the packaging tap back in the hammerspace from behind my back and pulled out a hand truck in its place. I slid the hand truck underneath the two boxes and flipped my right hand at Hello Nurse while saying, "Boys, go fig", then I tipped the boxes back on the hand truck and wheeled them into the office.

Once inside we sat in the waiting room until Scratchansniff was finished with his patient. It was quite odd not being hauled in to the clinic inside a wooden crate. The entire place was so quiet you could hear the clock ticking away. It was kind of maddening and with me being so nervous from the small incidences that have me questioning my sanity, it wasn't helping at all. I tried reading some of the magazines that were placed in the waiting room, but even that didn't help ease my nerves. We've never actually taken any of his sessions seriously before, so it was quite an odd feeling doing so now. After about five minutes of waiting, I was getting antsy and was about to ask my brothers if they wanted to set up our normal gag of entering inside a wooden crate when I heard the office door open and Dr. Scratchansniff walked out with none other than Elmyra. Quietly, we freaked out and hid behind one of the nearby fichus plants. (If that's what they were called.) The last thing any creature wanted was a bone crushing hug from Elmyra!

We stayed quiet as Dr. Scratchansniff finished talking to the dumb little girl. Hiding until she was completely out of the building before getting Scratchansniff's attention. When we did he spoke to us in his mid-thick German accent. (Or was it Russian?) "Yes, yes? Vat do you want?" Roughly translated, "Not you three again!" Yakko answered the doctor for me. "Doc, we're concerned for our sister. She says she keeps seeing a creepy stalker that looks similar to the new guy, Loc." Dr. Scratchansniff seemed quite intrigued by my plight. "Really? Ven did dish start?" He asked me. I bashfully answered, "Yesterday morning. It was before the tower collapsed." He then invited me in and my brothers had to stay in the waiting room. Durring the session, he asked me all about the incident and my views of it. I relayed the whole story to him and he then told me that I might be simply stressed out. (I have no idea how. I was actually relieved to get out of the tower that day.) Either way, I was fine, according to how we usually were.

We walked out of Scratchansniff's office after explaining to my brothers his diagnosis that I most likely was stressed out from being cooped up in the tower and just needed to spend a day out in the sunshine. (Good thing it wasn't raining.) "So, anyone wanna go haze Loc?" Yakko asked. "Where is he now?" I asked him. "Yakko looked around to see if he could locate Loc close by. However, Loc wasn't anywhere in sight. We walked around a little bit to see if we could find him, and eventually we did. He was taking a break from lifting and setting background props for a movie. It looked like he was working extremely hard cause he was covered in perspiration. The beads of sweat rolling down his face, neck and ripped arms simply made him look that much sexier. "Helloooooo Nurse!" I finally said when I got within range of him. His hair wasn't as spiky as I first thought. It simply stood out and back on the top and the rest of his long hair lay like a silk cape against his muscled back. His rats-tail began just in front of his left ear and hung down with seven beads and four different colors. Red, orange, green and blue near the left side of his lower jaw, a space of about an inch and a half of hair and then green, orange and blue. The rest of it was a little more than a foot of hair that draped down the left breast of his broad chest. Around his neck hung a necklace with a gold ring as a charm. It looked like more of a regular ring than a wedding band. When he heard me call "hello nurse", he turned to look at me with those icy blue eyes of his, shining like pure crystals in the sun light. He looked like he was part Native American and stood about five feet and seven inches tall.

I ran up to him as fast as I could and jumped into his awaiting strong arms. When he stood up with alarm, he was cradling me like either a baby girl, or possibly a spouse. I looked back into his eyes with beating hearts in mine and said, "Hi, I'm Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa..." As I spoke, my voice trailed off and I simply began to melt from the overwhelming sensation of simply being in his arms. His eyes had such a gentle look to them and he seemed like such a nice guy. (He's not Brad Pitt, or Mel Gibson. But hey, dreams change.) As he stood there watching me melt away, he put on a slightly confused look as he finished my name. "Franchesca Banana Fanna Bo Besca the Third." His voice was calm and wise sounding, he had that deep manly type voice but at the same time, it wasn't overwhelming and it was more comforting than intimidating. "I've seen your shows." He then finished. He then pointed at my brothers as he identified us perfectly, "Yakko, Wakko, and you call yourself Dot." At this point I was unable to put together any words to make any audible sentences, so Yakko spoke in my stead. "Really? So then you'll know why we are here." He said sarcastically still determined to haze him. "You two might be here to try and make fun of me in attempt to be my friend. Which is alright, I actually am much more understanding and tolerant than most others you have encountered. Your sister on the other hand, probably is looking for a date...which she can have provided it be tomorrow afternoon and she shows some restraint with her zaniness." Was his answer. "Yah, date..." I trailed off. Once the realization kicked in, I popped back to my original shape and almost immediately began to freak out. This has not actually happened before. (Watch the show. I never make it past the batter's box with any guy I have ever approached. And now I just got a base hit.) Yakko and Wakko were dumbfounded as to what just happened. Loc had just met us for a few minutes and not only do I have a date with him, but he actually made Yakko speechless. "What do I wear?" was one of the first questions that ran through my mind.


	3. Chapter 3  Surprise

**Chapter 3**** – Surprise**

We made our way to Slappy's tree to collect our things when she approached us near the park. "I've been looking for you three morons for a while now." She said. We simply looked at each other and Yakko asked, "How come?" "Just follow me." She blatantly said and began walking toward the farther outskirts of the park. We followed her for some time and she finally led us to a quaint tree house at the edge of the park. "What's this?" I asked. "This is sad. It's a tree house, sweetie." Slappy responded. I got slightly frustrated and said to her, "That's not what I meant." "I know." She responded. "I bought this land last year so I could resell and make a few thousand bucks. But, I haven't gotten any buyers on it so you guys can stay here until you can find a more permanent home. It was run-down when I bought it, but Skippy and I have been fixing the place up. It's furnished and everything. Just don't stay too long, or I'll have to charge ya rent." I was dumbfounded. Obviously the kid had convinced her to allow us to stay, but that still didn't make it any less out of character for Slappy. "We don't know what to say." I told her. Slappy simply answered, "Don't!" "No, wait. I have a 'thank you' speech!" Yakko called to her before she vacated the premises. "Oh, great! Here we go. Alright, get it over with." Slappy complained. Suddenly Yakko cleared his throat and said, "Uuuuuhhhhhh..." he held it for over a minute when Slappy interrupted him. "Are ya done?" she said in slight frustration with a little amusement mixed in. "Yep." Was Yakko's answer. "Thanks, it was 'heartwarming'." Slappy stated sarcastically and then closed the front door behind her.

We then looked around our new temporary living quarters. Upon entry, there was an immediate living room, (considering that the house was built into the tree trunk, assume that each room is circular) A circular run lie in the center of the room with a staircase following the curved wall along the left side headed to the second story bedroom. A television sat in front of a couch that was placed on top of the rug and a small kitchen just to the right of the living room. Upstairs, there was a queen sized bed with the head and foot boards made from cedar. The rest of the furniture was designed as a direct match to the bed frame, each also made from cedar. There was a chest of drawers, a small closet, a vanity with bench seat and mirror, and a small bathroom off to one side. The room was designed bright and cheery to help attract potential buyers. It was cute and maybe a little cramped but it was free for now so we decided to try and make it work.

"You guys realize that we haven't been doing much zaniness all day, right?" Yakko pointed out. Now that I thought about it, we actually hadn't been zany today. Probably it was because of the tower collapse late last night being still fresh in our minds. But, I don't think so. Either way, it was too late. The sun was already in the middle of setting and was determined to make its way over the horizon. Now would have been a good time to try to find an outfit for my date with Loc. However, the circumstances being as they are, I literally had nothing even semi-formal to wear. (Except probably the dress that Googli Goop gave me, but that was still dirty and was dry-clean-only). I was about to freak out when I remembered that I kept the outfit from our "Taming of the Screwy" episode in my hammerspace. Perhaps I'll use a diamond flower broach rather than the crown...Nah! We gathered our things, did some laundry using a washer and drier from Wakko's gag-bag, and got ourselves cleaned up before deciding who got the bed. We drew straws from Wakko's hand to make the decision. I drew the short straw, Yakko drew a straw that was about an inch longer than the width of his hand, and Wakko drew a straw that kept going until the room got so full, it was nearly bursting at the seams.

"I know it's hard to resist, but that joke might have been too much." I stated while pressed against one of the windows. "Ya gotta admit though. It **is** pretty funny." Yakko informed me. I just did my best to glare at him even though he was trapped on the other side of the room. The legist of the situation was, I got the couch and Yakko and Wakko slept in the bed. What rotten luck. (Other than the date offer of course.) I pulled up a blanket, located a pillow and nestled down the best I could along the couch like a hot dog cradled in a bun. It wasn't easy. Couches aren't the most comfortable places to fall asleep. Eventually, sleep overcame me and I drifted off into dreams of bliss. At least it started off that way. The dream opened up with me floating down from a dark room and gently touching down in a golden field of grass and flowers. The moment my feet touched ground, a warm, gentle breeze came in from my right side and danced across my skin and through my hair. With it, it carried hundreds of little daisy pedals as they danced and moved around as the wind willed them to. My gaze was averted as I thought I noticed someone else in the field with me. When I turned toward where I thought the image came from, there was Loc, wearing some sort of formal looking outfit. He wore a white shirt with a blue shirt over top of it. The blue shirt was a kind of button up looking garment that looked like a cross between a medieval tunic and a Japanese kung-fu shirt. The shoulders of the blue shirt had thin shoulder guards on them that were gold in color and stripes trailed down the shirt sleeves beginning from the edges of the shoulder guards and then rimmed the sleeves. Attached to his shirt was a red colored silk cape that draped down and came to a kind of tuxedo-ish looking dual tail look.

Around his neck he had his necklace. However, rather than having the ring on the necklace, he had an odd star shaped pendant with a four-sided diamond shaped crystal in the center. The star had one point aiming straight up, two points on either side of the top point, two more points situated next to those points and one point that jetted straight downward. The pendant itself was kind of a light blue color.

Around his waist he wore a belt with a four-sided diamond shaped golden belt buckle that had a silver rim lining it. Tucked inside his light brown khakis, and wrapped around the back of his waist was some sort of reverse apron that also trailed off like a pair of tuxedo tails and was colored red like his cape.

His khakis were also tucked into his brown high boots. On the rim of the boots was embedded a ruby jewel cut to look like the diamond on a ring. Around the jewel was a gold ribbon, probably holding it in place. Finally underneath the jewel was a bit of green fabric in the shape of an upside down spade head. Despite him looking sort of "alien" in that outfit, I couldn't help but feel like it was a formal look for his culture. (Whatever it may be.) And actually, he still looked pretty cute in it, somehow.

I simply stared at him in awe as he walked up to me and knelt down to see straight into my eyes. "Well, little one, looks like we get to speak to each other once again." He said to me in his heart melting handsome voice. He stood up to his full height and finally said, "By the way, you look beautiful in that dress." With slight confusion, I instinctively looked down at my body to see what in the world he meant. I was astounded to realize that I was wearing a gown that I've never seen before in my life. The dress was a gorgeous teal blue color with a silvery hue. The dress itself didn't cover my shoulders however, it draped down and split into four long flower pedals that went past my knees. Two pedals in the front and two in the back. Draping in between the two front pedals was a darker blue cloth that extended a quarter of an inch down past the hem of the underskirt of the dress that fell down to my feet. The underskirt was a sky blue color and helped lighten up the actual dress. Around my waist was a silver belt that started around a half inch on the sides of my hips and tapered till the belt was around one and a half inches wide in the center, just below my belly button. One thing that **did** cover my shoulders was a lighter sky blue transparent shawl that also was attached to my gloves and draped around my arms and laid against my back. To finish the dress, a sky blue cape of the same shape as Loc's fell across my back and stopped at my knees. The two tails intersected at their high point just above my tail. To top off the entire outfit, I looked up at where my daisy usually was and noticed that instead there was a flower that resembled a hibiscus with five pedals that started light green in the center and faded to a darker blue near the tips of the pedals.

Oh, how I actually wished the dress was real. Ditch the cape and it would make a perfect evening gown, or at least a great Halloween costume if I added a silver crown and fairy wings. Then a thought came to my mind. "What's with the cape anyway?" I asked myself out loud. Apparently Loc heard my question and said, "It make your best outfit formal. At least it did where I was from." How would I know that? Isn't this **my** dream? These thoughts ran through my head and I turned back to look at Loc. His ice-blue eyes gazing behind mine as if he was reading the pages of my life behind them. "What does that mean?" I asked even more confused than I was before. Loc thought about it for a minute then answered, "Where I'm from gowns and outfits aren't always crafted for a single situation. The clothes I'm wearing would be considered casual if I removed the reverse apron and cape. However, by adding the cape and reverse apron, I've made a casual outfit into a formal outfit." Figuring that it didn't count towards work outfits, I thought I had the legist of the explanation. Then a previous question arose. **How in the world did I know all of this?** Dreaming about a guy like Loc, I can understand! But come on! A strange outfit from a culture I have yet to completely identify, explanations on things I have no clue of that have the ring of truth to them... "**What's going on?**" I screamed to myself.

"Don't panic." Loc said to me. "It seems that we are 'dreamsharing'." I just looked at him puzzled and confused. "Bonded in our subconscious minds..." He tried to explain. "Look, I'm just in your dream and you are in my dream. Simple as that." Feeling a little better, but still confused, I simply gave him a bashful look. After that, we simply walked around in the dream world and talked for a bit. I learned that his last name was Zoulron, and that he likes chicken and Chinese fried rice. His favorite color is green and he likes to assist those in need of his help. He didn't actually talk about his past much other than telling me that the flower in my hair was his little sister's favorite flower and that his entire clan and family were wiped out by one psychopathic killer on a genocidal spree. He also asked me a few questions about myself and I found that I actually was starting to like him in a personal manner. Not just a crush on a handsome man anymore.

At one point, I found myself sitting next to him in a field of flowers on the slope of a small hill, resting my head against his right arm with my eyes closed and simply breathing in the warm sunny air for a while. It was pure bliss until I heard a darker and more sinister voice that resembled Loc's in a creepy manner. "So here you are." The voice came from behind the two of us and we turned around to see the man that looked like Loc but with black hair and no rat's-tail. "Isn't this sweet?" the mystery man said, mocking the two of us. "What are you doing here, Coluv?" Loc demanded as he stood up to protect me. Now the mystery man had a name to him, Coluv. It seemed like Loc knew him somehow and also knew what he was about. "Oh, nothing new. Like what I always want. For you to join me!" Coluv answered nonchalant. Still confused as to what exactly this man wanted with Loc, I still knew that we couldn't stay where we were. "Dot, I need you to do something for me." Loc said to me whilst still guarding me. "What? What do you want me to do?" I asked willing to do all I could to help him out. I had already forgotten that it was a dream until Loc yelled, "WAKE UP!"

I shot awake only to find out that it was Yakko who yelled in my ear. I tumbled off of the couch and crashed to the floor. Yakko simply couldn't help but break out into uncontrolled laughter. He laughed so hard at my shock that he even dropped to his knees and began pounding his right fist against the floor while holding onto his aching sides with his left. Irritated at my brother's antics, I slowly stood up and scoffed at him, "Oh ha, ha. Real funny Yakko. Thanks a lot." Yakko continued on laughing even harder and now had collapsed to the ground and began rolling around. After a few minutes of getting a kick out of my misery, Yakko finally started calming down and taking in deep breaths to remind himself how to breath. "You should find your new boyfriend and see what time you guys are going out and where." He finally was able to get out. Remembering that my date with Loc was this afternoon, I nearly began to freak out again because Yakko was right. I had no idea where we were going, what time I needed to meet him, nor did I have any phone numbers, neither his nor my own. (The tree house has a land line.)

I was just about to run out the door to go find him when I heard Wakko ask, "Do you think Dot will want her piece of candy Slappy left for her?" Skidding to a halt, I realized that lending us this house was probably the limit of Slappy's generosity and leaving a piece of candy obviously wasn't in the 'brochure'. "What do you mean, candy?" I asked. Wakko showed me the piece that he was talking about. He held it in his right hand, in between his first finger and his thumb. A tiny shard of what looked like rock candy. It was a transparent red color and was probably cherry flavored or something. "Why this piece of red rock candy, of course." Wakko said as he held it over his head with pride. They were probably pieces left here by Skippy. Slappy barely likes candy as-is and would probably rather see us eat walnuts than candy anyway. What are the odds Wakko would find any pieces left behind anyway...Ok, right, he could probably sniff them out from halfway across the globe, but still. I walked up to Wakko to inspect the piece for anything gross. It was completely clean, which was odd. I figured he had picked it up off of the floor or something.

"Wakko, where did you get this?" I asked in confusion. Wakko looked at me like I was nuts or something. "They were sitting on the night stand by the bed when we woke up. I already ate mine and Yakko ate his. They were sweet and nothing like we've ever tasted before. They were really good." Knowing that Wakko has tried everything from Styrofoam to space rocks, the only thing there was to guess was that it was a new flavor of some sort. But, where did it come from? I was about to place the piece of candy in my mouth when I caught a glimpse of the clock. It read 11:27 am. "Oh, my gosh! I've gotta go!" I panicked and instinctively shoved the piece of candy in my skirt pocket as I dashed out the door to find Loc.

I ended up locating him at the same sound stage he was at yesterday, working hard putting together the props for the movie He was helping with. "Hey Loc." I called to him. He turned to look in the direction of the sound that was calling him and found me a few feet away from his position. As I approached him, he quickly set down the prop he was holding (It looked like a piece of mountain background or something), quickly and gently grabbed a hold of my right arm and pulled me inside the sound stage close to the walls. He acted like he was hiding from something, or someone. "What's..." I tried asking him, but he shushed me, peeked out of the sound stage and looked around like he was making sure that I wasn't followed or anything.

"What's going on?" I asked him in a whisper. He looked at me like he was frightened and that I might have brought something terrible upon him. "Sorry," he sighed. "I guess I'm still nervous about a few things." I actually was sort of able to understand. However, I still had the feeling that there was something more to it than that. "What did you need, anyway?" He finally asked. "Well, I didn't know when or where you were taking me. And I had no other way of getting a hold of you." I admitted bashfully. Loc looked at me like the realization of that simple fact nearly brought the world to its knees. He then started giggling and then escalated into laughter. "Sorry about that, it completely slipped my mind yesterday." He admitted wiping a tear from his right eye. "It was just as well for you to come find me anyway." He then admitted. "This movie is going to take longer than initially predicted and I need to work late. Would it be alright if I take you out for dinner next week or so? I'm requesting time off then." All I could do was bashfully nod in slight embarrassment. Which wasn't like me at all. I usually know how to handle situations with zaniness and character. Not now however, I just clamed up.


	4. Chapter 4  Deadly Shadows

**Chapter 4**** – Deadly Shadows**

What I didn't know was that Coluv actually existed. That dream I had faded away like a distant memory even though it was fresh in my mind when I awoke this morning. Apparently, there was something he thought he needed to accomplish at Slappy's house. He arrived at the front door and knocked three times. Slappy, being inside her house, simply relaxing in front of the TV and watching a copy of her old cartoon show on video cassette. The knocking on the door came as an unwelcome interruption. However, she actually didn't have to get up at all when she heard her nephew call out, "I'll get it Aunt Slappy." The kid rushed to the front door to be greeted by the tip of a sword in his little gut. Barely realizing what had happened, Skippy first looked up at the man who had knocked on the door and then lowered his head to see what the strange feeling was in the pit of his stomach. When he realized that a long sharp piece of metal had been thrusted through him, Skippy slowly backed away from the blade and used both of his arms to cover the bleeding wound.

He slowly made his way back to his trusted aunt as his strength quickly faded. "Aunt Slappy?" He made an attempt to say. His voice had weakened and he was only able to say his words at half of their usual volume. Slappy noticing that there was something different in his voice, turned in her chair to look in her nephew's direction only to see him drop to his knees in pain and with a hole piercing through his gut and blood gushing out. Her first instinct was to rush to his aid to see if what she had feared was true or not. She quickly found herself holding the boy's head up as she spun him around to lay him on his back. "No, no." She said under her breath as she found her hand had slipped inside the wound. She pulled it out and her fingers were coated with his crimson blood. At this point, Coluv pushed his way through the front door and faced off against the distraught Slappy. Kneeling down to face her at eye level, he peered into her eyes and spoke to her in a dark, sinister voice that was drenched with blood lust and pure evil. "Where is he?" He asked the old grey squirrel. For once in her life, Slappy wasn't able to think of a solution gag for the situation. "Cartoons can't die. Cartoons can't die. Cartoons can't die." She repeated to herself out loud just at Coluv, rose his sword in the air. The sword was a slightly odd shape but, still resembled a Japanese katana blade. A diamond-cut ruby stone was embedded in the butt end of the hilt as well was kept in place by a gold ribbon. The actual handle was made of a clear, transparent material resembling glass and was hollow on the inside. The hand guard of the sword was oval shaped and had a knuckle guard that was shaped similar to a rose stem that ended around three fourths down the glass handle and was around a quarter of an inch wide. A right-angle-triangle shaped piece of gold connected the blade to the hilt. The actual blade was a dull silver color and extended about the average length of a katana. (Around thirty six to thirty eight inches long.) Skippy's blood was coating around an inch of the blade's tip. When Coluv finally brought the blade down, Slappy's agonizing scream could be heard echoing through the entire park.

When I returned to the park, I noticed a crowd gathered around Slappy's tree. Curious, I went and joined them to see what was going on. From beyond the crowd of people, I noticed that Slappy's entire property was quarantined off by police tape. Gazing in to the tree the best that I could, the only thing I could see was a forensics team and maybe a pool of what seemed like a blood trailing from the front door to the living room. "What happened here?" I asked myself out loud. Slappy and Skippy were nowhere to be found. Forensics couldn't even find a body for the pools of blood inside the house.

A few hours passed by and eventually the crowd dispersed back to their homes. Even I made my way back to the tree house that Slappy allowed us to stay in. When I arrived there, I entered the front door and called to my brothers realizing that they probably needed a reason to make fun of me and I preferred to get the hazing over with sooner rather than later. "Yakko? Wakko?" I called. There was no answer. At first I thought that they might be out causing havoc without me, until I noticed a piece of paper on the dining table. It was a note written by Yakko with a little map drawn on the bottom. The note read, "Hey sis, Wakko and I are gonna chill at the 'water front'. Meet us there if you can." Just to let you know, during the production of season two, the three of us wandered off of the set and got horribly lost in a nearby forest. We eventually found our way to a seventeen foot tall waterfall area that was somehow spring fed from the top. The waterfall emptied out into a seven foot deep creek that carved its way through the forest and made muddy shorelines during the fall and spring. It was a wonderful sight, though still unexplained. The wall the waterfall followed had two paths leading to the top, one on each side. In the middle of the top of the waterfall, a large rock protruded out around six feet and simply hung in the air. The waterfall itself was around ten feet wide and thus made the creek ten feet wide as well. The water was cool and crystal clear and the sound of the waterfall offered a stress reliever on occasions.

It took me a good chunk of time to find my way back to the 'water front', as we named it, and it was nearing late afternoon when I got close enough to see my brothers. The strange thing was, they were tied up and hung from the rock in the middle of the top of the waterfall with some rope. There were cloth gags around their mouths and they were mumbling repeatedly when they finally spotted me. "This isn't obvious." I said to myself. As I climbed up the left side of the rock wall that dumped all of the water over I called to them, "So who is it this time? Mr. Director, Hello Nurse, one of the other villains we've annoyed and..." As I reached the top, I felt a sharp pain tinge at my back. In a few seconds, the pain moved through my back, passed my stomach and the blade of a sword erupted out of my flesh. My crimson blood spurted some from the initial wound. However, as long as the sword didn't move much, my blood's flow was partially blocked. Suddenly, a large arm wrapped itself around my neck, holding my body up and keeping me from falling. Clenching my teeth together at the intense pain, and closing my eyes tightly, I never expected to hear a familiar voice whisper in my ear. "Where is he? I know you know where he is." The voice sounded just like Loc's voice. Startled I opened my eyes quickly and looked over to my right ear, into which the person had whispered into. It wasn't Loc, but Coluv from my dream, his black silky hair draping over his deadly green eyes as he leaned over to look at my eyes directly.

My eyes shifted, and I caught a glimpse of both of my brothers with horrified looks in their eyes, trying to cry out to me, but the scarves muffling their words. Coluv raised his voice with anger and frustration. "Where is he? Where is Vuloc?" With blood coming up my throat, I tried to speak and tell him that I had no idea who he was talking about, but all I did was choke. Suddenly, he took his arm away from my neck and quickly pulled the sword out of my body and I began to fall forward, my strength leaving me faster than I could think. The last thing that happened before I blacked out was watching Yakko struggle to pull the gag off of his mouth and around his neck simply to scream my name. I did black out seconds before Coluv flipped the sword around and thump the ruby into the wound he had just made in my body. By doing this he ensured that my body fell forward and I plunged into the cold ten foot deep water. The creek was moving at a pretty good pace somehow and I was quickly swept downriver of it and disappeared among the trees. Yakko, watching me be swept downriver with blood seeping out of my body and staining the water as it followed the current, was wrought with fear. Wakko, as well. At this point he would have chewed through the handkerchief gag and have and most likely said something off color or borderline obscene. However, with what just happened, he too was overcome with fear. "Why would you do that?" Yakko asked with a mixture of anger, fear, loss and despair in his voice. "What kind of person are you?" Coluv merely lifted his head and stared at Yakko with solely his left eye. "Perfection", was his only answer.

A half-mile down the creek, my body was washed ashore in the mud. Dirty, wounded and covered in my own blood, I was convinced that I was going to die where I was. The only regret I had was that I never got to go on that date with Loc. My vision fading and with hardly any strength in my body, I painfully shifted my head to the left as I thought that I heard rustling in the nearby brush and trees. The image I saw was horribly blurred and I couldn't identify whether or not it was a person or a wild animal. It didn't matter anyway, my eyes closed as the last of my strength gave out and I thought I was gonna finally escape all of this pain forever. My life flashed before my eyes and the one question that constantly ran through my mind was, "What's going to happen to my brothers?"

During my absence, that monster, Coluv, continued his hunt for the man called 'Vuloc'. Relentlessly pursuing everything that I had come in contact with since I first saw Loc. He even pursued the rest of our toon friends. His first stop was to Dr. Scratchansniff and Hello Nurse. He entered the front door, rounded up the doctor and nurse, and asked them the same question he asked Slappy and I, and when they couldn't answer, their pained screams were heard echoing through the movie lot.

Pain began to twinge through my body once again and my eyes opened up slowly. At first my vision was still blurry, but it wasn't long until it cleared up though. I shifted my head to try and see if this was heaven or not. It wasn't, I found myself in a log cabin that was only lightly furnished with random fixed up pieces of furniture. Nothing matched and most of it looked like it was hand carved with a pocket knife. I was lying on a bed made from the same wood and had only a twin mattress resting on it for comfort. The blankets that were covering my body however, were probably store bought and fairly warm. Feeling some of my strength returning, I decided to try and stand up. However, the moment I shifted my torso, the pain intensified and I was unable to move beyond simply lifting myself up six inches. I flopped back down onto the mattress and gasped for air and relief from the pain. Hearing me cringe, the person who rescued me came into the room holding a bowl of what smelled like homemade chicken soup. The moment I turned my gaze to look at him, I immediately recognized him. "Loc?" I weakly spoke out in shock. He shrugged his shoulders and replied, "Guess you've found my get away place." "I thought you had to work late." I said to him slightly irritated and yet grateful to him. "Yah that's the thing... I haven't been completely honest with anyone since I arrived on this planet ten years ago." It took a while to figure out that he said "planet" and not "city". I simply raised my left eyebrow to show him that I was confused. "I'll tell you the story after I heal you for now." He said. Now I was even more confused, but I didn't have much strength to argue with him.

He slid his hand behind my back and gently lifted me up to a sitting position. It was excruciatingly painful. After he sat me up, he gently rested his right hand on the wound in my back and his left hand on the wound in my stomach. He then closed his eyes and mumbled something to himself that sounded something like, "Kat Du Vastros". Suddenly, his hands began to glow a shining pearl color, the glowing slowly began to envelop my body. (Now would be a good time to insert jokes of your liking.) As the glowing got brighter, I started to feel my physical strength return to me and the pain subsided all at once. He continued this for around a half of an hour before the glowing began fading quickly. When the whole thing was over, my body felt more relaxed than after message sessions. "Sorry," Loc said slightly weakened. "It looks like it's gonna take a little longer to completely heal your injury." "Well that's alright but, how are you doing that? How did that sword injure me in the first place?" I asked him. "Well, looks like I'm gonna have to tell you my story...without tailoring." His voice grew sad and wishful as he told me the story of his people and how he came to Earth. "I'm not even human, Dot. I'm called a Valkyrian, I was born on a planet known as Valkyria." "What's it like there?" I asked out of curiosity. I thought at first that he might be annoyed with any questions that I asked during his story. But, it was just the opposite. He smiled as he answered my first question. "It is a beautiful planet, filled with wondrous creatures, water so clean you could see the bottom of every ocean, fruit that was both wonderful and exotic." He stopped and sighed at the memories of his home world. I could see a teardrop escape from his eye and roll down his cheek.

"But that all changed the day I took the sage's test." "What does that mean, Loc?" I asked confused and kind of needing a back story to catch up. Loc then straightened up his back and said to me, "My name isn't actually 'Loc'... It's **Vu**loc." I almost shot out of bed when he told me his real name. However, the pain came back as I moved. Vuloc then placed his left hand on my stomach and gently kept me from moving too much. "That man asked me where you were before he tossed me into the creek." I groaned. "So he **is **looking for me." Vuloc responded. "Who exactly **is** he?" I asked with my own frustration. Vuloc looked into my eyes before he answered, "Coluv. Its Valkyrian translation means 'other Vuloc'. It literally is my name spelled in reverse." I thought about it for a moment and said, so my 'other self' would be named..." And Vuloc interrupted, "Ssecnirp Anilegna Assetnoc Asiuol Acsehcnarf Ananab Annaf Ob Annab the Third." He said it as if he had been speaking reverse his whole life. Then he added, "But you can call her Tod." Just to be coy. I simply lay there dumbfounded at the ridiculousness of my name said in reverse. It was actually pretty funny sounding and I have no idea why I never tried to say it like that before. (Probably because I would have bitten my tongue something awful simply practicing it.) Then I asked, "What **is** Coluv, your evil twin or something?"

At that moment, Vuloc turned his gaze toward the floor near my bed, trying to avoid eye contact with me. "In a sense, he **is** me." Shocked and confused I had no idea why he would stab me, heal me with some sort of super power and then admit it to me. Noticing that he was rapidly losing my trust, he quickly explained, "It was the result of a spell used during the sage's test. Coluv was literally born from my shadow. We are separate but at the same time he is my dark half." Still confused, he suddenly blurted out, "I use to have blond hair before the separation of good and bad." "Oh." I said finally understanding that Coluv was Vuloc's living shadow. The image of Vuloc with blond hair suddenly made its way into my head and I thought to myself, "Helloooo Nurse!"

"Anyway, I found out that Coluv regarded himself as the perfect being and thinks he can govern the lives and existence of others. He destroyed my entire planet on that principal alone." "Why didn't you try to stop him?" I asked Vuloc. He tipped his head down even farther and now closed his eyes in shame. "Because, I'm a coward. Coluv was destroying my people and I just ran away." I knew how he felt since Coluv had been stalking me looking for Vuloc, I was afraid of him.


	5. Chapter 5  Indestructible

**Chapter 5**** – Indestructible**

It wasn't long until Coluv found himself a place to stay right under everyone's noses. The sound stage of one of Mr. Director's new movie ideas was abandoned and it was just Mr. Director trying to make his own cut rate films. Apparently Coluv had quietly disposed of Mr. Director the same way he disposed of Slappy, Skippy, Hello Nurse and Dr. Scratchansniff. Now he was in the midst of building some sort of machine. The two brothers watched helplessly as this unstoppable lunatic destroyed everything they had come to know and love. However, Yakko wasn't gonna watch anymore. He wriggled his hands until the rope that held them together had loosened and slipped one hand out of the knot. He then untied his other hand as secretly as he could. However, the moment Yakko's hands were free Coluv turned toward the two brothers and began to approach them.

Yakko attempted to act like he was still tied up to give himself time to figure out a way to escape with Wakko in tow. Coluv knelt down to look at Yakko eye-to-eye and said to him, "Don't worry, it won't be long before you join your friends." With that notion, he held up his sword until the handle was shown in front of Yakko's face. The strange thing was that now there was a piece of what looked to be a shard of a spherical object and the handle was half way filled with a liquid that looked like blood. Dancing inside the blood were four tiny spheres of light. Each moving around on their own as if they were alive in some way.

"He uses a Valkyrian sword called the 'Armageddon Blade'." Vuloc explained to me during another healing session. Not knowing what he was talking about, I asked him, "What's the 'Armageddon Blade'?" "It's a forbidden weapon that once was created to serve severe sentences to the most corrupt and dangerous criminals of our world. Kind of like the 'death penalty' here." Vuloc answered solemnly. With somewhat of a realization, I responded, "Oh." Then Vuloc continued, "It doesn't work the same way though. The blade of the sword sheds the blood of its target, yes. But the real power is in the Blood Star crystal normally kept inside the handle." "What does it do?" I asked with curiosity. "If left inside, it would suck the soul out of the target through the swords blade when it was thrust through its target's core muscles or heart. However..." He trailed off for a few seconds. "However?" I repeated his last words. "However, Coluv had found a different use for it. If he breaks the jewel into pieces it releases a tremendous amount of energy, temporarily turning the sky red. This signifies that he is about to start his hunt and hand out the shards to unsuspecting victims." Vuloc said to me.

Realizing that the red light in the sky during the time that Yakko, Wakko and I went out for ice cream wasn't my cherry, but the Blood Star being smashed, I asked Vuloc, "Does the shards of the Blood Star resemble rock candy in some way?" Vuloc looked at me like I had read his mind. "Why yes, it does. How did you know?" He asked. Rather than saying anything to him, I simply reached into the pocket of my skirt and pulled out the shard of what-I-thought-was-candy and showed it to him. Vuloc closed his eyes and lowered his head and said, "Did your brothers receive one as well?" "Yah, but they ate theirs." I admitted. Vuloc opened his eyes wide with shock, "That's bad, if the shards are ingested, that means that the shard has already bonded with your brother's souls. The only thing left to do is extract the shards by pressing the ruby on the end of the handle against an open wound." "How does that work? Is the jewel and the Blood Star made of the same material?" I asked. Vuloc simply nodded. "Then, why can't you suck out souls with the other jewel?" I asked. Vuloc looked at me like I was either crazy or clueless. "The spell. The jewel on the hilt is enchanted to only absorb its own material and transfer that material into the hilt of the sword. Not to absorb the souls of living creatures like the Blood Star." "You talk about spells and magic like it is a way of life on your planet." I retorted. Vuloc looked at me with slight shock in his eyes and blinked twice before saying, "It is."

Yakko didn't want to listen to Coluv's ramblings about the ultimate in perfection and that he alone had the right to govern existence so he decided to make his move. "Excuse me, Mr. Psychopath?" Coluv stopped his ramblings and dropped his arms to his sides. He then slowly turned to look at Yakko with his one eye evil look and said, "My name is Coluv. It's not that hard to remember or pronounce." Yakko cleared his throat and answered, "Sorry, but my brother and I just wanted to apologize to you." Coluv sighed and retorted, "For the sake of your crude humor, what would you like to apologize for?" Yakko lowered his eyebrows, grabbed a mallet from the hammerspace from behind his back (where his hands already were), and said, "For this." Just then, he swung the mallet sideways with his right hand, brought his left hand to the mallet's handle in mid-swing, smashed it into Coluv's body, and continued on until the mallet collided with a nearby wall, burying Coluv in it. Yakko then snatched up his brother and ran off as fast as he could. Coluv simply opened his eyes wide with rage and broke free of his restraints in the wall, grabbed the Armageddon Blade walked out the door in pursuit of the two brothers.

"Why don't you fight and stop him?" I asked Vuloc. He lowered his head in shame and replied, "Like I said before, I'm a coward. I'm too scared to fight him. Plus, I can't actually afford to fight him and loose." Confused, I asked him, "What do you mean?" He kept his head down as he spoke to me, "He seeks to assimilate himself with me and dominate the soul. And if he succeeds he'll become a hundred times more powerful than he is now." "What do you mean?" I asked, trying not to pry too much. My questions seem to be pressing a lot of bad memories on him. "I, am my planet's most powerful being. They called me a 'sage' even though I doubt that I am worthy of even being called that. I was always a scared child in my youth. And even now, I have many fears, Coluv being the one I can't seem to face." He chuckled slightly and then said to me, "I suppose this is the part when I get some deep wisdom from you, huh?" I just hung my head down and said, "My brothers and I never actually paid much attention to that sappy morels stuff. We always thought it was ridiculous. The only morel we kept was that we wouldn't harm anybody unless provoked." Vuloc chuckled solemnly again and said out lout to himself, "Heh, looks like I've got a new partner to keep me company while escaping to the next planet." Shocked to hear that coming from him, I wasn't about to leave my brothers behind and simply run away. "I'm not leaving." I said. Vuloc simply looked at me like he thought I had a death wish. "You don't mean to stay here, do you?" He gasped. I looked into his eyes with all of the seriousness in my body, and told him, "I'm not leaving my brothers. You can't always run away from what frightens you. I have to at least **try** to save my brothers."

Seeing that I was determined to go in even if it was alone, Vuloc gave in and sighed, "I won't stop you if you feel that way. But I must warn you, Coluv has a spell to counter all of your gags and he will be able to see most of them coming. The only way to defeat him is to pierce his heart with this." With that said, he held up a katana with a black scabbard that had a gold cap at the end of it. He pulled the blade from the scabbard and a hatch that was about a foot and a half long opened in it, making it seem easier for someone my size to pull the long blade out with ease. The sword's blade was a white silver color. The hand guard was a gold colored oval shaped plate with four corners, and the design resembled something of vines leading from the back of the blade around to the front of the blade, a vine-like design even crawled up the back of the blade for about four inches. Also etched on the blade was a carving of the medallion that I saw Vuloc wearing in my dream. The six pointed star. The handle looked like it was made from ivory while it had a black cloth covering the sides and was pinched at one inch intervals traveling the entire length of the handle, and was capped by piece of gold at the end. Embedded on the cap was a half of a perfect cream-white pearl. I'm not much into swords, but it still was a sight to behold.

He lowered the sword into my hands and immediately I felt like I had gotten stronger simply by touching the thing. "This is called the Valkyrie Star Blade. It is a symbol of the Sages." Vuloc told me as I looked in wonder at the katana. "But, I don't know how to use a katana." Suddenly the realization of things seemed to make it heavier, and it crashed into my lap and took my hands and arms with it. "It is said that a heart that is strong can wield the blade, but when many are as one, the blade's true power is revealed." Vuloc said to me. "What does **that **mean?" I asked in utter confusion. "No one actually has figured out what that means yet. The farthest we have gotten is that only those who trust themselves find the sword to be lighter than to those who doubt themselves." To test that theory, I told myself "I can do this" repeatedly until I believed it. Suddenly the sword got light enough so that I could pick it up with both hands easily. "This cliché is overused." I said to Vuloc. He simply looked at me annoyed at my comment. "That sword is thousands of years old. Of course it'll be cliché by now." He retorted. I simply looked at him with slight surprise, turned my gaze to the sword and shrugged my shoulders to gesture, "Whatever."

During his pursuit of the two Warner brothers, Coluv took the time to hunt down the rest of his victims. (Those who he either dropped off a shard of the Blood Star, force fed a piece of the Blood Star or simply dropped a piece of the Blood Star in their mouth during their sleep.) However, it seemed like every time the handle was filled with the blood and souls of his victims (which was every eight souls taken), He had to empty the blood and souls into a portable vial which he kept on him at all times. At this point he had already slain Pinky, The Brain, The Goodfeathers, both Rita and Runt, and even Mindy and Buttons. All the while relentlessly following Yakko's and Wakko's every step and lying waste to nearly the entire movie lot. Using fireball spells, lightning spells, and even simply blowing things up to flush the brothers out. During their chase, Wakko began throwing random objects from his gag-bag at the monstrous Coluv to at least try and slow him down. However, nothing seemed to work. Coluv would use spells to bolster his physical strength and simply toss everything aside.

Meanwhile, Vuloc was training me on how to properly use the sword. Some of his lessons he had to help me understand, but for the most part I was learning quickly. Around three days had passed and Vuloc was teaching me more about the ways to hold a sword when I heard a dull explosion in the direction of the movie lot. (Or at least what I thought was the movie lot.) "Are you sure you want to take him on alone?" Vuloc asked. "I already told you. 'I have to'." I replied. Yes it was cliché. But, remember what happens to the main character in stories that use that line? "You have more courage in you than I ever had." Vuloc said then added, "Maybe I can use your inspiration to find my own." He then slowly knelt down to me and pressed his lips against...my forehead. (Nuts.) When he pulled away, he told me, "Just remember to control your temper. Revenge works against you where justice helps." He then led me inside the cabin he was staying in, picked up a dark navy blue hooded cloak, swung it over his shoulders and fastened it around his body. He then picked up some pink folded clothes from the kitchen table. "Here, you might want to look your best when facing him." He said as he handed me a new pink skirt, a matching pink blouse and a darker pink shawl with a leather string that was attached to a flower charm and sewn near the right shoulder. "I made them for you since your clothes are dirty. And in some cultures, this is a sign of endearment." He explained as he pulled the hood of his cloak over his head.

Probably not the most protective of battle garments, but it still was a nice gesture if not a creepy one. When I looked up to thank him, it was as if he had vanished completely while I was looking at the new clothes. Kind of weird when the wise magic user barely gets you prepared for the final battle and then vanishes without a trace. Maybe if I get overwhelmed, he'll swoop in, finally face his fears and conquer them...I found myself actually hoping for that to happen. My gut told me that I was walking right to my doom.

After changing into my new clean outfit, I walked outside and spun around in a circle to try and find my bearings. I needed to find the way back to the studio and fast. I first listened for the sound of the creek. Once I located the creek, I followed it back to the 'water front' area where Coluv stabbed me. It took me another two days to locate the creek and follow it. During that time, Coluv had laid waste to seventy percent of the lot. Sound stages and production buildings were crumbled and on fire, filling the sky with dark clouds and tainting the sky burning red. The heat from the buildings was intense and at this time, the entire lot had been vacated except for the hand-picked victims of Coluv. Each one of them had fallen other than Minerva Mink, Yakko, Wakko, Thaddeus Plotz and the Mime. He had already captured Mr. Plotz and Minerva and took them back to his hiding place, just in case Plotz knew something about Vuloc and Minerva because he regarded her as perfect and wanted to try to court her. In total, he had taken the souls of around thirty innocent creatures and people. Yakko and Wakko were still running away from the evil monster when they ran by the confused and still silent Mime. First the Mime simply watched as the Warner brothers ran away as fast as they could, then as a sinister shadow fell over the Mime and enveloped his own shadow, he slowly turned and saw the reason why the two brothers were so frightened. The Mime jumped away from Coluv, bent his knees and acted out holding a pretend sword and shield. Coluv actually was rather confused at the silly person's actions. "I think I know why these silly inferior beings dislike those in this profession so much." He said to himself. Then he swung his real sword against the Mime's pretend shield. The Armageddon Blade cut through the Mime's sleeve and flesh easily and he jumped in pain. Coluv then grabbed the Mime's cut arm and said to him, "Allow me to put you out of you pathetic existence", and then pressed the jewel of the handle against the Mime's wound. The next part was like a dream to him, he felt time stop as his life energy flowed from his body to the sword's handle. As his energy was drained, the handle extracted a sample of his blood, and then suddenly his body began glowing and dispersed into tiny sparkles as a small ball of light was shot into the handle of the sword. A new shard of the Blood Star, which was now nearing completion, floated in with the Mime's soul and automatically reattached itself to the larger chunk. "Only a few more to go." Coluv said to himself.

Yakko and Wakko kept running from the seemingly indestructible monster. Both scared out of their wits and doing everything they could to survive. It wasn't long before Coluv had them both cornered and was approaching them to take them back to find out where Vuloc was located. He wanted to assimilate his light half quickly so he could decimate this "pathetic rock" as he almost all of the time put it. As he approached the two brothers, Wakko began to panic completely and pulled out the largest mallet in his arsenal, and made an attempt to bring it down on the mad man. However, Coluv wasn't gonna fall for the same tactic twice. After casting a spell that made his left fist as hard as a diamond, Coluv punched as hard as he could at the mallet's head as it came swinging down. When the two connected, it was the mallet that lost that battle. The mallet handle cracked and split in two and the mallet head simply flew off in the direction of Coluv's punch, behind the Warner brothers.

Hopelessness set in as the mallet head came crashing down, that was until Yakko noticed that every time Coluv cast a spell, his hand glowed. And the spell was maintained as long as his hand was glowing. The moment Yakko saw the glow of Coluv's left hand blink a few times, He figured out that he couldn't maintain his spells very well. Yakko quickly reached into Wakko's gag-bag and pulled out the largest object he could find. Whick happened to be a full sized cruise liner. As the ship dropped down on top of the alien monster, he lifted his hand up and cast a spell that gave him the strength to carry it. However, the strength to carry the liner didn't include the strength to walk with it. All Coluv could do was hold the ship in his hand for a while as his spell faded in and out for a few seconds. As the spell faded out, he was nearly crushed by the heavy ship, but quickly regained himself as the spell faded back in.

Yakko took this opportunity to try to run away again. However, Coluv saw through that part of his plan and heaved the ship toward them. The ship crashed just in front of Yakko's path, blocking their final escape. "Oh, I'm going to make the two of you suffer for your actions. You insignificant inferior creatures." Coluv said maliciously. "Now, where is Vuloc?"


	6. Chapter 6  Darkest Moments

**Chapter 6**** – Darkest Moments**

I finally arrived back at the movie lot to find it burned to the ground. Most of the fires had burnt down and had left only hot cinders and piles of ash. This was the second time that the smell of smoke was the most prominent in the air. The clouds were thick with smoke, causing the sun's light to be blotted out, and flickers of small flames and rising cinders danced in the air every once in a while. The air was heavy and it was slightly hard to breath. There was destruction everywhere, and the Lot was deserted. Every once in a while, I would see spills of blood on the ground from where Coluv had slain one of his victims. After a while, the movie lot felt more like an oven, it was getting so hot. That was when I noticed one building still intact. "Thorough, but that just makes it more obvious." I whispered to myself.

It was obvious he believed me dead, so not many chances of a trap. But, I figured that I'd better sneak in anyway, rather than announce myself and then pitifully get my but whipped. Keeping as quiet as I could, I tip-toed around the piles of ash and made my way to the side door, which was conveniently already left open. Inside the sound stage, a whole bunch of random mechanical parts and materials were thrown around in piles of junk strewn here and there. "Well, this makes it easy to get around. Looks like Wakko has been building another one of his crazy whoopee cushion contraptions again... Or could this be Coluv?" I thought to myself. I sneaked around a little more to see if I could at least find my brothers. I figured I was headed in the wrong direction when I thought I heard T.P. scream like a little girl and the sound came from behind me.

I made my way back to where the sound had come from, and lo-and-behold Plotz was being interrogated by Coluv on where Vuloc might be. He had open wounds on his arms and face, and was simply pleading for his life. At one point, Plotz had given in and told Coluv that Vuloc had probably evacuated with the others and that Coluv would never see him again. Infuriated, Coluv pressed the sword's jewel against one of the cuts in Plotz's right arm and absorbed his soul into the hilt of the sword. "Then you are of no use to me." He then said as if Plotz's soul could talk back from inside the handle. He then looked at the Blood Star and measured it to have four pieces left rather than just three. "I suppose I'll have to track down the body of that little brat, Dot, and locate the final piece before moving on." He mumbled to himself. "Now my dear," He turned to Minerva. However, Minerva panicked and began to scream, "I don't know any Vuloc!". She closed her eyes as tightly as she could as tears began streaming down her cheeks. "Actually, I was hoping you would join me in ruling this universe." Minerva slowly opened her eyes and looked at Coluv stunned. "What?" she asked. Suddenly, Wakko spoke up, "No, don't! He hurt Dot! He's a monster!" Wakko and Yakko both were locked in an oversized bird cage. Wakko's gag-bag was taken away from him and placed far from theirs and my reach. Angry, Coluv walked over to the cage and stood in front of the bars. Wakko tried to make sure that he was on the opposite side of the cage that Coluf was in. However, when Coluv outstretched his right hand toward Wakko and curled his first and second fingers in, his hand glowed and Wakko suddenly was pulled toward Coluv by an invisible force. "Yakko, help me!" Wakko pleaded. Yakko followed the best he could, but Wakko reached the other side of the cage before Yakko reached the middle. Coluv quickly used the blade to make a cut in Wakko's left arm, and then pressed the jewel against it, absorbing Wakko's soul. Yakko barely reached his brother in time before his body dispersed like a bunch of fireflies flying off in all directions then simply faded away.

I tried not to cry out loud as I saw my brother disappear like that. However, it was hard and I ended up closing my eyes tightly and just let the tears roll down my cheeks. During my sob, I heard Minerva scream in horror from watching the pure evil destroy another innocent. "You **beast**! I'll never do anything with you!" Coluv stood there flustered and insulted for a while until he spun around and flung the Armageddon Blade from the cage, all the way to the piece of wall he had set up and shackled Minerva to. (Approximately 20-25 feet distance.) The sword still had enough force in it to plunge through Minerva's stomach and out the stone, it stopped about three inches from the hilt. Minerva's eyes opened wider than they ever have been opened before from the sudden shock of pain from the sword plunging through her. She looked down at the wound with the sword still inside her stomach and watched as the blood seeped out of her body, staining her white blouse and purple colored skirt deep red. The stains continued spreading as Coluv stepped closer to the weakening Mink. He grabbed the sword's handle and said, "Then join the inferior beings you call friends", just before yanking the sword back out. Her blood spurted and went flying as the sword was forcefully pulled out of her body. Minerva tried to scream, but blood was rising through her throat she had almost choked on it. As she coughed, the blood in her throat sprang up and began running down her lower jaw until it simply dripped onto her already stained blouse.

Already seeing enough, I screamed out loud in rage and sprang out from behind the pile of junk, drawing the Valkyrie Star Blade which I had strapped onto my back. (Did you actually expect me to strap it onto my **hip**?) In blind rage, I held the sword up and charged at him, screaming like a barbarian, tears streaming from my eyes and my vision blurred from them. Coluv turned to look at where the noise was coming from and was shocked when he saw that it was me charging at him. However, he was still able to react when I lunged at him. He stepped to his left and swung the Armageddon Blade so it clashed with the Valkyrie Star Blade. Since I was so light, he was able to throw me backward with his parry around twenty feet, and I crash landed on my back with a thud, and slid another seven feet. "You?" Coluv exclaimed. "How'd you survive?" He then noticed the sword I was holding. "Where did you get that sword?" I just stared at him in anger, my eyes flaring with the fire of hatred. Minerva coughed and wheezed, still hung to the wall and drenched in her own blood which was spilling out of her body rapidly.

Realizing that I was still an amateur at real sword play, Coluv relaxed and turned back to Minerva. Gently pinching her chin with his first finger and thumb, Coluv lifted her head to look her in the eyes, which were glazing over from now being half dead. "Don't worry my dear," he said just before shoving the hilt's jewel deep into her wound, "I haven't for gotten about you. First Minerva cringed in pain and then her face relaxed as if having her soul removed from her body offered relief from the excruciating pain. She began to glow and disperse like a swarm of fireflies flying in all directions. Her body's shape shrinking in size until there was nothing left. Then the shard of the Blood Star, like being dropped into a glass of liquid, shot back into the hilt and fused into the near complete crystal. Minerva's soul floating around inside the hilt along with Wakko's and five others. "We could have ruled all together. Perfect power and perfect beauty. But, no. You had to have morals." Coluv mumbled to himself. "What pitiful drivel." He began rambling.

My fingers were stinging from that last attempt, and it was pretty obvious that I had given up the element of surprise. Still, I had to get even with him. I had to stop him from hurting anyone else. I began charging in once again, and got the same result. He parried my strike and I was flung across the room once more. With fits of rage, I continued my failing tactic over and over. I was beginning to get sore from being thrown around so much. "I have no idea why Vuloc gave you such an important artifact and powerful weapon." Coluv said after throwing me for the eighth time. "You are clearly too weak to take me on. I can guarantee that you will never lay a scratch on me. I've been using this sword for over ten years and you have only recently picked yours up." He was right, I was completely over whelmed and my legs and arms were beginning to feel like jelly. My mind began to race and my heart felt like it was going to burst right out of my chest. What am I going to do when he gets serious? He hasn't even used any spells yet and he has me outmatched.

Suddenly Yakko called to me from his prison. "Dot!" I turned my attention to my older brother. He was giving me a solemn look combined with concern and sorrow in his eyes. "Stop, please. It's ok. We'll be fine, I promise." A promise he knew he couldn't keep. He just wanted me to get away. "How sweet. The big brother playing hero. And here I thought you didn't like those clichés." Coluv stated to Yakko. Yakko lowered his eyebrows in anger and scoffed at the fiend, "Leave her alone, Coluv. It's not even her you want. If I can lead you to Vuloc, will you let us go and give us back our friends and brother?" Coluv looked at Yakko intrigued and even slightly impressed. "Hm, perhaps you and I are more alike than either of us thought." Coluv deduced. "I'm nothing like you!" Yakko shouted. "Perhaps you are right little one." Coluv calmly said then dashed to the cage and thrust the blade deep into Yakko's stomach. "And the answer to your question is no. I cannot allow such imperfect creatures to exist in my new world."

The next moments I watched in horror as Coluv mercilessly pulled the sword out of the last member of my family, turn the blade around and press the jewel against him to collect his soul. Yakko tilted his head back as if his pain had all washed away just as his body began to glow. And just like the others, his body broke apart like a swarm of fireflies. When Yakko finally disappeared, and his piece of the Blood Star had fused itself with the rest of the chunk, there was still one piece left for him to collect. I suddenly was unable to move my body and the only thing going through my mind was how alone I was. I dropped to my knees and screamed at the top of my lungs as loud as I could, tears streaming down my face like running faucets. I hunched forward and braced myself with my hands and arms, the Valkyrie Star Blade still in my right hand. Coluv had started walking towards me when he said, "Only one piece left to go. I don't know how you escaped having your soul collected. But I can tell you, it's not as bad as you think." "And how would you know?" I asked in my own malicious tone of voice. Something in me had snapped during all of my crying and nothing mattered anymore. "Have you tried it before?" Somehow, the tone in my voice had frightened the heartless Valkyrian and he simply fell silent. "I didn't think so." I stated. When I lifted my head to face him, I was angrier then I ever have been in my life. I actually wanted to kill him. I didn't notice it, but as my anger grew, the blade of the Valkyrie Star grew darker and darker until the blade was completely black. Abandoning all fear, I rushed in at Coluv once again, only this time I could hold my sword with one hand. Bringing the arm that held the sword across my chest and rushing in as fast as I could, Coluv brought the Armageddon Blade up to make an attempt to parry my strike again. However, I actually was ready for that move this time. I spun around to dodge his sword and then swiped the blade of the Valkyrie Star across his chest. When his blood spilled from the wound, for some reason, I actually felt good about myself and turned around to take another strike until Coluv separated his arms and erected a barrier spell to protect himself.

Thinking that I had him on the ropes, I continued to slash and cut at the invisible sphere surrounding him. What I failed to realize, was that my movements were becoming predictable to him and when he anticipated my next attack, he countered. I brought the sword around my right side and attempted to slice through the barrier when Coluv dissolved it himself and blocked with the Armageddon Blade and said, "Even at your peak of power, you're so weak." Suddenly he scraped his sword across mine and traveled down to the hilt, getting in close to me and burying his fist into my stomach and flinging me to the other side of the room with his punch. I crash landed into a pile of junk, scattering pieces and parts in random directions.

"Stay down and have some patients, I'll let you join your brothers soon." Coluv taunted as he plucked a vial from behind his reverse apron. The clothes he wore looked exactly like Vuloc's formal attire he wore in my dream other than the fact that Coluv never wore any shirts. The vial was similar looking to the handle of the Armageddon Blade down to the diamond cut ruby jewel capping it off. It even was the same exact size as the handle, and all Coluv did was touch the sword's jewel to the vial's jewel and the blood and souls spilled into the vial like a pitcher pouring water into a glass. "And you are the last one." He then said to me as he took the vial and placed it on a rack near the devise he was working on. "It actually doesn't matter whether you fight or run. When I'm finished with this device, it'll bring Vuloc to me." He told me as he patted his unfinished device. "Unfortunately, the only fuel source for a spiritual device is spirits." The reality is I never wanted to know what that device was supposed to do, but since he is constantly overwhelming me even if I manage to get the upper hand, I was just about to lose hope, until I noticed something strange happening with the vial that Yakko's soul was trapped in.


	7. Chapter 7  True Power

**Chapter 7**** – True Power**

Inside the vial Yakko's soul apparently was communicating with the other souls and after conversing with the souls he was currently saddled with (Wakko, Minerva Mink, Thaddeus Plotz, The Hip Hippos, Katie Kaboom and her little brother), he made attempts to talk to souls in other vials. At least that was my theory... The little bb sized soul was bumping against the glass and was probably actually Wakko's soul for all I knew.

Still trying to catch my breath with a knot in my stomach the size of New York, I made an attempt to stand up. When I finally was on my feet, I reached into my pocket and pulled out my shard of the Blood Star. "One left that never absorbed its intended soul." I said holding the piece in the air. Coluv looked at me in awe, like he was impressed and thought I was a genius or something. He then began to chuckle at himself a little bit and then broke out into a maniacal laughter. "So that's why it didn't work before." He said whipping a tear from his eye. "Very clever, little one." "Here! You can have it back." I yelled as I tossed the shard as hard as I could at him. He simply caught it in mid flight and rather than trying to shove it down my throat, he touched it to the jewel on the bottom of the handle. The shard was absorbed through the jewel and transferred into the glass, where it automatically fused to complete the Blood Star Crystal. Coluv then chuckled and told me, "Do you understand why the Blood Star was designed to absorb souls?" "I know it was used as a death penalty for your planet's most dangerous criminals." I answered. "Very good, but wrong." I was confused. Exactly what part did I get wrong? "It's worse than a death penalty." Coluv then added. Imagine being trapped in a red space, neither living nor dead. Unable to move, breathe, or even blink your eyes or scratch an itch. No hunger, no thirst, unable to even feel or smell." "You act like you've been trapped by the Blood Star before." I snapped back. "You are right, I haven't. But I studied its power and even found the journal of one who was affected by the blade's power at one point. It was marvelous." He boasted as he stretched his arms to the sides. "You've caused me enough trouble. So, I'm gonna let you experience it firsthand." And with that he lunged at me intent on slaying me with the Armageddon Blade.

As if time had slowed down to a mere crawl, the moment passed by in what seemed like forever. Coluv lunged at me with the intent of trapping me in the Blood Star, from behind him, all of the vials of souls burst like M80's all at once as the souls increased in size and brightness and jetted straight for me. Before Coluv even reached me, the souls of all of my friends and my brothers had converged on me all at the same time, causing an enormous burst of power, tossing piles of junk away from my body and literally tearing the building to pieces.

I opened my eyes to find myself in a weightless yellow space surrounded by spirit images of everyone that had been slain by Coluv. Yakko was located on my right side and Wakko in my left, both of them just beyond my arm's reach. I observed myself and noticed that rather than wearing clothes, my body was illuminated to cover up anything private. (Censors!) "What is this?" I asked. "The afterlife?" "Not exactly." It was as if I could hear Yakko's voice in my head rather than in my ears. It was really strange. "I got to talking with everybody else, and uuuuuhhhhhhh, we decided that you might need our help." "When many are as one, the blade's true power is revealed." I said to myself.

Outside of my spirit, Coluv was blown away from the eruption of power and sat up with slight pain. He looked in the direction of where the eruption of energy had come from and thought he could see an image in the smoke and dust. When the dust began to settle, the shape was clearer to him. It was **me**. But somehow I was changed by the convergence of all of my friends' souls. Instead of being a nine year old girl around the height of three-foot-four, my body had matured to a version of myself in my mid twenties and stood at around five-foot-seven. It was clearly a mature body, due to the fact that it had fully bloomed size C's under the golden hoodless cloak with a shiny pink shawl covering the shoulders and breasts. Shoulder guards were attached to the sides of the shawl that were light blue with gold lining for the trim. On my head sat a battle helmet that only a beauty, like myself, could possibly pull off. The front of the helmet was a golden plate that came to a point nearly touching my nose and rounded over my ears and was mirrored on the top of the front plate. The center of the front plate came to a crease and the sides of the plate came down to my cheeks and wrapped around the back of my head. Light blue colored metal on the sides of the front plate came to an oval shape and had five light blue long wing-tip feathers attached to each of them. In the center of each side piece was the Japanese symbol for hope carved into a large silver coin. The top of the helmet, that covered my scalp and ears, was light blue in color with a lining that emulated the shape of the front plate.

"What in the world is going on? What happened?" I asked the other souls. "We're still in the dark about this as much as you are. But, this is your body so...you're in the driver's seat." Yakko said to me. As I looked around, I noticed that the souls had me completely surrounded and had formed a spherical shape each soul being about two feet apart in distance. The souls also had absolutely no definition to them. It was just a shining light blue light with a shape according to who it was. The silhouettes were also tucked in a fetal position and incased in a sphere of clear light. I also noticed that each silhouette also had eyes made of red light and also had red light in the same likeness as the wound inflicted upon them. For instance, Wakko was taken by Coluv pressing the jewel against a cut in his arm, so the spirit silhouette of Wakko had a red light in the likeness of that cut on his arm. Yakko however, was taken by Coluv pressing the jewel against a stab wound in his stomach, so Yakko's spirit silhouette had two red lights in the likeness of the stab wound. One in the front of the stomach and one in the same spot on his back. Most of spirit silhouettes had stab marks on them. However, Slappy's was a slash mark leading from her left shoulder and ending up near her right hip. The mark had gone completely around her shoulder and traveled along both her front and her back, and she clearly was not happy. "We need you to get this guy for us." Slappy said in a mean tone.

Back outside, Coluv was irate. "What happened? Who are you?" When I tried to answer, I found it super difficult to control the body and its movements and functions. Simply moving the mouth and vocal chords was tiring. The first thing that happened was the body opened up the eyes on its own in response to Coluv's voice. If one were to look at the eyes they would have described them as glowing a deep crimson red, as if malice had the ability to show itself through my eyes. "I am she whom you had failed to slay at the waterfall." I managed to say. However, I actually wanted to say my usual introduction. "I am also they who you have slain without mercy or without reason." The voice added on its own. The voice in this body was slightly metallic sounding, but at the same time it was my voice in three different pitches. "This is absurd! Creatures like you shouldn't have even come into existence." Coluv stated. His eyes blood shot with hate and fear. My body again somehow responded by itself. "We were born, we live, and we eventually die. That gives all creatures a right to existence." The already irritated Coluv just got even more enraged by that comment. "No, it doesn't. I decide what may exist and what may not in my new world. And I say, 'you aren't allowed to exist'!" He shouted as he readied the Armageddon Blade for a killing blow. I struggled to move my legs and dodge the strike, but I just couldn't seem to move.

Despite my body looking so trim, it felt like my legs weighed a ton. Eventually, I gained slight control of the body and was able to parry the Armageddon Blade with the Valkyrie Star Sword in my right hand by simply bringing the arm up and twisting the wrist to aim the tip of the sword downward. Stunned and surprised, Coluv looked in awe for a while at the piece of armor covering my arm. It was an arm guard that spanned from my wrist to my elbow. From the wrist it tapered down to a point over the back of my fist. (Which was covered by a silvery green glove that went up three quarters up my entire arm.) A section of the arm guard was gold in color that started on the inside around a quarter of an inch from the edge and tapered up and came to a point in the front. An oval ruby jewel was located in the center of the gold piece on the back, where it could be plainly seen. The rest of the arm guard was light blue and the end of the arm guard, was rimmed with a gold cap.

Coluv then jumped back around fifteen feet and extended his left hand toward me. Flames ignited in front of his palm and then began to spiral around themselves eventually forming a ball that continued to grow in size. Again I tried to move the body with no success. How am I gonna even fight this guy if I can't move this thing? When I looked around inside my spirit, I noticed that most of the spirits were trying to seize control of the body to attempt to exact their own revenge. Suddenly, I remembered the words that Vuloc had told me before he vanished. "Revenge works against you where justice helps." Now I needed to convince everyone to let me handle things without making it sound sappy. "In the driver's seat, huh?" I sarcastically retorted to Yakko then turned my attention to the entire group. "Hey everyone, you need to stop trying to exact your own personal vendettas on him. You're only making it harder on me." "Maybe it's just you." Slappy retorted in a mean and rude tone of voice. "This guy thinks he's so perfect. We'll I'm gonna show him perfection upside the head." A number of other voices began to murmur together doubting not only me, but each other. Each wanted to exact their revenge on Coluv for the harm he had inflicted upon them.

"Do you think it will help? Us letting you handle things? I'm afraid you'll get hurt again." Wakko said. When I looked at his spirit silhouette it didn't have red eyes, but white glowing eyes and his red wound mark had vanished. I looked at him and felt at ease that he was worried about me. "I just need you to trust me." I said to him. "Oh, kay. I f that's all you need, then I trust you." Wakko responded. Listening to his little brother talk like that sort of inspired Yakko. "Is that it? Just trust you?" He said. I just smiled at him and said, "Trust me to do the **right** thing." Yakko's eyes faded from red to white and his glowing stab wound instantly faded away. "Ok, sis. Do your little thing." Somehow that little display made sense to a few others and their eyes faded from red to white as well.

I still didn't have much control of my new body yet, because when Coluv fired his now basket ball sized fireball, I still wasn't able to dodge and it collided with my stomach and exploded on contact, destroying both my golden cloak and my shiny pink shawl. They both flew backward as they caught fire and burnt to cinders behind me. The tow shoulder guards that were attached to the shawl fell to the ground and 'clunked' as they bounced once and away.

Underneath the cloak and shawl I wore a light blue suit of armor. The breastplate was shaped perfectly to my new figure. The benter was lined with a gold ribbon that split and followed under the breast line. Under the gold ribbon, was a large ruby colored stone shaped similar to a shield. The rest of the breast plate followed my rib line and ended with another gold ribbon capping it all off. The tops of the breast plate also were capped with gold ribbons. The breast plate still exposed the collar line and was held on by leather straps gold plates covering them near the shoulders. Attached to the shoulder straps were shoulder plates. Shaped like my shoulder muscles, colored light blue and capped off with a gold lining around the edges. Under the breast plate I wore a silvery-green blouse that the only part seen was just beneath the under arms. Attached to the back of the shoulder straps was a silvery-green cape. (Starting to see the theme here?) Across my waist was a gold armor belt that tapered down into a point in the center. Attached to the belt first was a shiny pink skirt. The skirt was only attached to the belt until it draped down and exposed my hips, in which hip plates shaped like an elongated version of the shoulder guards were attached. The center of the belt had gold diamond shaped chain links attached to it. (Around five large ones.) On the hips of the belt there were rings in which had golden chains attached to them that led from the hip to the bottom of the second diamond shaped link in the middle chain. To top it all off, my armored boots had a gold rim on the top, in which a smaller version of the breast plate's red jewel was located and attached to each boot. Silvery-green metal lined the jewel and tapered down into a point on each boot as well. The rest of the boot was light blue metal with gold colored souls. (Eat your heart out Wonderwoman.)

"This is impossible!" Coluv was flabbergasted. "How did you become a **Valkyrian**?" He then shouted as he extended his hand toward me once again. This time light blue electricity charged in front of his palm and built up in size and power. This time I fought hard for control of the body and was actually able to move it for a time. When Coluv's lightning shot directly at me, I extended my left hand and caught the lightning bolt. (Don't ask me how, I think it was an instinct of this body.) Bringing my arm back and placing my own energy into the spell, Coluv's lightning bolt suddenly turned pink. When I shot my arm forward again I fired the lightning spell back at him, the pink lightning seemingly traveling in random directions but still maintaining its course. Coluv dodge rolled to the right just as the pink lightning struck ground and caused an explosion.

"Did **I** just do that?" I just asked myself, surprised at what I just did with the pink lightning. Skippy's eyes then began fading from red to white as he said to Slappy, "Maybe she **can** pull this off, Aunt Slappy." "What does she know? She wasn't around to save **you** when you were bleeding to death." Slappy retorted. Most of the other souls' eyes began to turn white from the display of control I had over the body during that instance. I found that the more people who allowed me to simply control the body, the easier it got to move.

While Coluv was stunned with my redirecting his spell, I began moving the body some more. First, I lifted my left hand and turned my head to look at the fist. I opened and closed my left hand, balling up a fist and uncurling my fingers to get use to moving them all at once. Coluv watched as my eyes faded from glowing red to shining yellow, indicating that I was gaining more control of the body. With a fist clenched, I stretched my left arm out, spun the fist over so that the knuckles were facing the ground and bent the elbow of the arm, raising my fist up to my eye level. Then I decided to use the right arm and the sword up and quickly swung it downward three times. Each time the sword was quickly brought down it cut through the air and made a high pitched whipping noise as it did.

Realizing that I still didn't have very good control of my new form, Coluv sought to maintain his advantage. He quickly stood up from his kneeling position, and dashed in toward me. He swung the Armageddon Blade inward and I brought the Valkyrie Star up to parry. The two swords clashed and left a loud ringing in the air as they did. Slightly surprised that I didn't go flying from his sheer bruit strength, Coluv began pushing as hard as he could against the Armageddon Blade in an attempt to bring me down to my knees by simply overpowering me physically. It worked. Physically, I wasn't as strong as he was and it was only a matter of time before my left knee touched ground.

The struggle wasn't going to end there. Once Coluv had me down to one knee, he grinned an evilly and placed the palm of his left hand in front of my face. Flames ignited in front of his palm and quickly began dancing around each other, soon forming a ball of flames. He meant to strike me with the fireball at point blank range and deliver maximum damage. I made a quick attempt to stand up and move away at the same time, but I wasn't fast enough to escape harm. The fireball was launched, just as I moved away and it struck me in the right side, denting my armor and burning my skin. The force threw me to the ground and I slid a fair distance before stopping. My side was throbbing and my breath had escaped from me for the moment.

"Not good." I said to myself realizing that I was still being held back by others who were still trying to exact their revenge. I attempted to stand up as quick as possible, but almost as soon as I stood to my feet I was struck by another fireball. It struck me in the arm and exploded on impact, causing me to be flung backward once again. I was tossed as I spiraled horizontally in mid air. My right shoulder guard, pieces of my right shoulder straps plating, tattered pieces of my right glove and the broken bits of metal from my right arm guard, all scattering as I twisted my body and landed on my feet with enough force and balance to slide back another six feet.


	8. Final Chapter  End of the Storm

**Final Chapter**** – End of the Storm**

"See Skippy?" Slappy said to him still full of doubt and anger. "She can't do it. Let me in there and I'll show that guy a thing or two about hurting others like that." "And what are ya gonna do Aunt Slappy? Throw dynamite down his pants? Smash him with an anvil? You made a living on utilizing cartoon violence, but you never actually tried to **kill** anyone before." Slappy backed off a little bit as Skippy said that. He was right. Slappy never has actually had the desire to kill another before. She simply continuously took advantage of the fact that no one can be killed from cartoon gags. And she finally realized that if she did pull any of her gags successfully, all it would do is enrage him even more. This guy wouldn't stop just because he was knocked silly. "Alright Skippy, you've made your point. So what should I do?" "Let go of your vendetta. Trust Dot to handle everything for now." Skippy said to his aunt. "That's it? Let her handle the whole thing and sit back and do nothing?" Slappy complained. Skippy simply nodded in acknowledgement.

The battle outside was starting to heat up, literally. I was constantly being bombarded by fireballs from Coluv, while he was laughing maniacally. "See if you can avoid **this** you insignificant little insect!" He shouted. It was all I could do to do just that. I spun around, danced and dodged the best that I could. (In all honesty, I had no idea that I could move like this.) A few fireballs struck me, one in the right arm and one in the right hip, destroying the smaller gold chain, knocking my right hip guard clean off, tearing a hole in my battle skirt and burning nearly my entire right side. I tried to block another one with the Valkyrie Star Sword. However, the moment it struck, the blade snapped a foot from the hilt and broke into five pieces. The tip of the blade snapped off six inches down and two smaller shards broke off making the remainder of the blade look like a reverse Bouie knife.

By the time Coluv had stopped firing fireballs, the dust had kicked up greatly. And he watched on hoping to see my burnt, mangled body lying dead on the ground. No such luck. He was flabbergasted when the dust cleared and I was still standing on my feet, my eyes closed and out of breath, no less, but still standing. When I finally opened my eyes and looked straight at Coluv, he noticed that they were now glowing a bright light blue rather than yellow. Coluv screamed at the top of his lungs in frustration. "Why won't you just **die**?" He yelled. "Because, we won't let you have your way anymore. It's time you paid for your crimes." My voice said on its own. It was almost as if my body had taken on a life of its own somehow. I still was mostly in control of it, but there was wisdom now to the things that came out of my mouth.

Holding up the broken sword I positioned myself to strike at his heart like Vuloc told me I should. A last ditch effort, I dashed in as fast as I could toward Coluv until I was close enough to plunge the broken blade through him. With more confidence than he should have had, Coluv positioned the Armageddon Blade in front of my strike to attempt another block and then try and slay me with another one of his spells. However, the moment the two swords made contact, the Armageddon Blade gave way and snapped in to two halves. Fear and loss painted itself over Coluv's face as his weapon crumbled to dust as the blade of the Armageddon Blade fell to the ground near his feet. My weapon never stopped its strike though and the sharp point of the broken sword plunged into his skin. The blade continued on through the left breast of the black hearted Coluv, eventually piercing that black heart. His face stricken with pain, he slowly turned his gaze to the sword whose, hand guard was pressed against his skin.

I released my grip on the handle of the Valkyrie Star and slowly backed away from him. I rose my hands up to look at them and found that his blood had leaked on them during the final strike. Discovering that his blood indeed was black, the realization finally hit me. I just took the life of another living being. I continued in my own shock as I watched Coluv take a few steps backward, weakly ask me, "What...about...my...perfect...world?" All I could say to answer him was, "The world is fine the way it is." Then Coluv's knees buckled and he collapsed to the ground on his left side. His green eyes glazed over and he finally stopped breathing. Grief and pain all hit me at once, and I began to cry for what I had to do. I screamed out loud with grief as a white light enveloped me and I blacked out.

I awoke to find myself in a familiar bed surrounded by familiar things and familiar people. Apparently I had been asleep for three weeks and my brothers looked after me during that time. The water tower was rebuilt, constructions crews were working on repairing the rest of the movie lot, and I somehow had returned to my original form. The feeling of that moment when I stabbed Coluv continued to haunt me for a while and every now and then I thought I saw a figure with white hair and shrouded in a blue cloak watching over me.

One day, when my brothers were causing mischief, I decided to step outside for a bit of fresh air and leaned against a tree. "I know you're there Vuloc." I said seemingly to myself. Suddenly the blue cloaked figure emerged from behind some shadows. "It's good to see you again, Dot." He said to me. A moment of bittersweet silence followed. I finally decided to break the silence and ask, "Will it go away?" Vuloc looked at me surprised and asked in response, "Will **what** go away?" "This feeling, the blood on my hands. Will it go away at all?" I asked again. Finally understanding what I meant, Vuloc answered, "Eventually it will. It's actually better than not feeling anything at all. It means you're human-ish" "Thanks...for everything." I said and turned to where I thought he was standing. He had vanished while I was talking and I figured out why when I heard my brothers call for me. I looked over in their direction and saw Yakko waving to me. "Dot, come on. We're going out for ice cream." He yelled to me. I thought to myself, "Why not", and ran back to my brothers calling back, "Not without me, you're not!" I realize that some things might be difficult. But if you put your trust in yourself and in others, anything is possible.

THE END


End file.
